


You can't stop the cold seeping through

by Qtya



Series: Craving, Searching, Finding, Keeping [1]
Category: Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Bit confusing, Not easy to digest, Sad, emotional outlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-27 21:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10816956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qtya/pseuds/Qtya
Summary: Angst, wishing for...well....remedy?





	1. Lost

Jason had no idea where the hell he was or how the hell he had got there. 

He only knew that this was not good. At all. 

He was walking through some kind of classical no-man's-land. Maybe in Alaska? Or Siberia?   
Hills and mountains and then hills and mountains again. Covered in giant forests, which consisted of enormous trees. Sometimes a river, deep, fast, between fucked-up riversides. And rocks, dead and mostly grey grass, then more rocks. Where trees actualy disappeared sometimes, dry, dusty, dead parts waited for him, with small hills of rocks....Not one of those helped him to figure out where he was or which direction would be a good choice.   
Jason was lost, and it didn't really matter which higher peak he tried to reach, he felt that..something simply wasn't right. This place...the wilderness....somehow it felt so undisturbed, so powerful, so rich, but somehow it was.....oppressive. It kept radiating a certain atmosphere, it's shadow staying over Jason. And that shadow just had to have a touch of finality's whispering in itself...  
Somehow...there was nothing here to be scared of, Jason knew it, and yet...he couldn't get rid of some kind of strange worry.  
He pulled his pathetic clothes tighter around himself (his Red Hood suit wasn't meant for extreme trekking at the end of the world) and kept going. He had no idea what he could reach by walking, but he didn't want to stop.   
And as time flew, not so quickly, not really slowly, a feeling started to grow in him. It was an urge, to go. To move. To keep going, no matter what. Push forward, without hesitation, without doing detours, without delays, without breaks.   
Jason was shocked when his brain actually realized, much later (or...it wasn't that much later? The greyish-white sky didn't seem to change at all), that he let this urge consume him.   
He was tired. He couldn't tell when he started this crazy hike, which worried him enough, but the state of his body told him enough. His legs were shaking, his breathing was more like heaving, his hands couldn't really grip on branches or roots or rocks anymore to help him climb, when that was necessary. The drizzle, which had started....God knew when, he didn't know, but now it was torture! It was cold....And maybe weak, small, not really threatening, but it came down onto him nonstop. It simply ate away the last remains of Jason's self-control. Then it kept going down still....  
The drizzle, bathing the forests, already saturating them amazingly, making water drip from the leaves and the pine needles, and sometimes making small waterfalls (half-water, half...fog??) fall down right onto Jason - the drizzle was torture.  
And it was so cold.   
Everything was cold here, as Jason had to discover.   
Sometimes, when he wheezed out small, warm clouds, thinking it was his life leaving him, he watched them floating or (worse, for his mind's health) dissipating away, he stared at the majestic trees before him, and felt a freakish kinds of amazement, or respect. They were...so...huge, so free, so unbreakable....  
They were cold ancient power, towering over him. One, small, lost human being, a flicker of life-energy, so-so insignificant and forgettable, in comparison to them. His journey through them was...pointless. There was no way he could defeat this enormous power.   
He felt his strength wasting away, and in the meantime the relentless, unexplainable pressure didn't change at all. It was ruling him from the depths of his heart, from the cells of his body. He couldn't stop. He had to keep moving, even it was a slow, pathetic struggle.   
One step, after the other. Even it was sluggish.   
Desperate fight for each movement of his feet, clenched teeth when the ground became uneven...

Jason strove for the slowing travel's each meter, with everything he had. Every combative little thought, which was left in his mind. Every gasp. Every goddamn bits of stubborness he still had, the very bits which had made him start to crawl to the door, on the floor of a certain warehouse in Ethiophia, once.   
Every last bits of his shimmery, so rapidly fading energy. 

The valley was long.   
He started to follow it's direction, because it was the only thing to do. But it was long.   
Originally, Jason had been walking upwards, his aim had been the ridge of the giant mountain he'd ended up being on.   
But he had lost that fight. After his sixth fall, he had been freaking out, down on the ground, because he had felt unable to get back up. After a quick, horrible dive into panic, he had fought back himself onto his feet, but he had realized that....it had been the end. He hadn't been able to go forward, not with his exhaustion, not into the original direction.   
He'd turned to one side...and that had been it.   
Nothing had happened.   
The urge simply had started to push him into that direction.

And Jason had started to accept, that he had lost his mind. 

He had seen other valleys here and there, drawing on the mountain beautiful landscapes, and making it impossible to ever leave it behind.....   
He had come across the very one he was following now by accident. And nearly falling into the almost-black water.   
It had been a wise decision to give up the struggle for the ridge. A valley, with not so cruel sides, was almost too much.....What could have happened the other way? 

The drizzle was actually weaker here, somehow. Jason was mostly cursing because he slipped in the dirt again and again, and it was terrifying for him. One bad step, and he could fall into that fucking river!   
Or he could just stay down....and die in the dirt....  
He shook himself, eyes widening at the thought, and cursed again. NO! No, he would not let that happen! 

His clothes were totally soaked through, his body shivering unstoppably, the cold slowly eating him up, his vision going in-and-out, when Jason realized: it was truly darkening.   
The whole world was becoming duller and duller, outlines harder and harder to see (not that he had to so much luck with that until then), the white-grey sky slowly sinking into hopeless filthy-grey.  
Jason had no idea if this was normal here or not. But he became more and more scared with each passing second. 

He looked around again and again, panic growing in him, and mixing with the urge from earlier to a haze of madness.   
Jason started walking, or more like, dragging himself, to a thick mess of trees and smaller branches. He had no idea why he hadn't seen earlier places like this, with this enormous amount of bushes. Probably because he hadn't been able to care.  
But now, with terror ringing in his ears and his heart like a fire-alarm, he was so grateful! He could only think about lying down in, or under, the thickest parts, dig himself into the fucking dirt, and hide.....and rest.....

And just before the darkness could have closed down on him, on Jason's desperate and scared mind, the young man found himself staring at a small wooden cabin, right in front of him, hiding in the tangled mess of bushes.

He threw away caution and sanity, ran to the door, pushed it in, then fall to the floor, because it wasn't closed. 

Jason's last thought was to close to the door behind himself with an adrenaline-fueled kick.

 

Silence.


	2. Cold, cold, cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting closer to the end

Jason lay on the rickety, narrow cot in the cabin for days. Or for a much longer time. He couldn't even estimate it. 

_Everything is a thick, white fog. And....hopelessness...._

He knew now cleary, that something was wrong. 

_Please...._

And he feared the future.   
  


_Nobody will come...._

 

                                                                                                                 ****  
  


When he had woken up the first time, he hadn't been able to recognize anything around himself. For hours (probably) he'd just stared at the rotting, dark wood around, listened to the rustling noises around, shivered unstoppably. 

_Whatttthe...._

Then he'd slowly started to remember.  
In the total darkness, when he had searched around only by touch, crawling on the floor like a miserable worm, he had found the cot. And on it some thinned, ancient blankets and furs (for a long time he hadn't been able to understand what the hell they had been) in various levels of decomposing. 

_Nobody will come here...Oh, God...._

It had been better than the cold, which had been killing him by every passing second then. He had felt it so clearly. He had been dying. 

_I....can't.....fuck.....I....I.....can't......_

Jason had climbed into his last chance of survival, not even bothering with undressing, which he had known well what a giant mistake had been. But he hadn't had the energy to do it. He had had only enough to bury himself under the layers of pathetic protection against the cold (no, death....no, just the cold....but it had been death itself too...) and curl into a ball. 

He hadn't known if he would wake up again....

_How could this happen....?...._

But he hadn't been able to do anything against his body's shutting down. 

 

                                                                                                               ****

 

After waking up, after his mind's clearing up, Jason had had the chance to think about his situation, and then to accept many things. 

He would never make it out of here. 

He didn't have any equipment, he didn't have his guns, not just his helmet, but for example his domino too had been missing from the very beginning. No chances to find help, to communicate with the world, to ask for help....

And....he felt it in his body, much deeper than a gut-feeling, in his bones, in his blood, in every cell: he couldn't do it.  
It was too much....

He didn't have enough power anymore to go forward. 

 

 

So he lay with thoughts chasing each other in his head pointlessly, staring at the ceiling, for a long time (probably for days). He stayed calm. No movements, no screams, no crying. 

_What would be the point of shouting....?_

_I am alone. This place is true tranquility...._

Only when hunger didn't come, and when the cold made itself a part of him, but he was still alive, and when he realized that even if it was fever, his mind was too clear, that was when Jason started to understand that something wasn't right. At all.   
  
_This is not how it should be._

That was when the numbness, which had engulfed him by then, disappeared for awhile. 

 

Because Jason didn't wish for a fight with an invincible opponent, especially one he'd already known well. This form of passing away? What could he do against it? He had lost even before the fight would have started. 

And....it wasn't really that horrible. No. He could tell. 

 

But...this wasn't normal. Even if he was dying, and his brain got damaged in the process. 

And he started to feel fear. 

What was going on? 

 

_Is this just a....?_

 

More time passed away, probably much. Jason wasn't even sure about days and nights, he never tried to get up and go to the door, after his first try. Which had ended up with him falling to the floor, then crawling back to bed, painfully slowly. 

It could be winter or something out there already. 

He didn't even want to get up. 

 

 

Even fear could get duller and duller, it seemed. Jason just lay on the cot, shivering, his eyes searching for something in the cabin, his soul searching for something inside, the cold slowly taking over.....everything! 

_How quiet everything gets...._

Nothing happened during the...days, he had just lain there. 

Maybe nothing would as well. 

 

 

After more time, more unexplainable....nothing-happening, and probably dozing more than once through....even more time, Jason finally had a few clear thoughts. 

His mind was still quite clear, he could understand where he was, he could still name things around himself, and no matter how he'd prepared himself for them: no nightmares came, no hallucinations visited.....  
He was weak. He couldn't really move, he couldn't get up. He could only stare and think. But he was still alive, without food, no signs of coughing, no signs of pneumonia, no real pain in his body.   
He was cold. Cold beyond anything imaginable. It wasn't about the feeling anymore. Cold surrounded him, fulfilled this place, inside the cabin was constantly cold hopelessly, no matter how long he had been lying here, trusting in his bodyheat to make the small shelter better. This whole place's most important trait, or more like: the very core of it was....the cold. 

It never changed, it never stopped torturing Jason, cold was here the thing one had to accept, and had to surrender to it, sooner or later. 

Jason had already done that. Before, he had cursed constantly because of it. He had tried to move under the blankets and furs, had tried to bury himself deeper, curl up into a tighter ball. 

_For fuck's sake! Fuck! Stop!_

But nothing had helped. 

And he had surrendered. 

_Please...._

_Please..._

_Please......._

There was no reason to keep trying, keep fighting. This ice-hell was a sneaky, but undefeatable force. It seeped through, it enveloped, it fulfilled. It claimed everything ever reached. No chance to keep it out, keep it at least a few centimeters away. No chance to escape. 

Jason felt like everything was ruined by the cold. Not just the cabin, or there forests. But he whole world.   
No place left where there was still a little warmth...

_A little life...._

He trembled softly in his defeated body, his mind remembering too much and not enough at all - at once. Chaotic jumble, mixed together from his lives...flashing by too quickly....not helping, not meaning enough, not solacing, not....close.....

_Flying over Gotham...That wasn't this cold. Ever._

_Kori and Roy. Their warmth seemed just a hallucination now, the wished feeling, with it's real...vibrating power - no chance recall it, not to make it..feel close._

_The Manor....No, keep that just a faded memory of a huge house._

_The heat from well-known guns, kills after kills. The warmth from the blood...on very own hands....The killer firewaves from the explosions, after clear orders....Fuck, it looks too easy to remember them, but they were so far-far away now...._

_The agony of an explosion, just a flicker, then darkness....No....no..please don't make me remember that...._

 

He was cold, his skin, his breath: cold, cold. When he touched anything with his fingertips, it felt like ice, but he couldn't be sure about his fingers anymore: what if they were that cold? 

He got saturated with the cold. His whole body, from the inside out, was just the same terrible cold. 

No warmth left in the world, not for him. 

_Was it **truly** different ever before?_


	3. Remedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If our love is tragedy,  
> why are you my remedy?

Jason was looking out through the broken door at the world, a bitter, crystalclear, cool peace fulfilling him.

The rain outside was now mixed with snow, and it bathed this hard, unforgiving world into a painfully perfect, fitting cleanness. Everything was dripping, or covered in melting snow, or, as he could see it from the cabin, frozen into ice.

 

He had never thought before that such cruel cold could exist. It was beyond painful. For real. Jason didn't feel it anymore, or pain, or anything.

He was just weak, so weak, even shivering was too much now.

There was nothing left.

 

His thoughts wandered around everything, and nothing, more often than not not making any sense. But he let it run freely.

The emptiness of this world, how rarely he could hear birds, for example. Only the rain.....  
Then why this place was so lethargic, above everything else. It squeezed out life from his soul, slowly but surealy, after taking away his body's strength.

Then his life. How empty he felt now. Oh, there had been many things to remember, many things he had done, sure. So many fights. But it wasn't fulfilling, at all. It wasn't a comfort, now.

 

Jason had....well....he could measure his worth in a fucked up childhood, a wonderful time as Robin, death, anger, pain, murders, fights with bad guys, good guys, his family, himself....

Even if he had done some good, by cleaning up the filth of Crime Alley as much as he had been able to....

 

It looked too much like....taking out the garbage, but then not putting anything into the flat afterwards...

 

It was such a depressing thought, he had to sigh a bit.

 

There were a few good things....here and there....He tried to focus on those.

 

But the numbers were far from even.

 

He couldn't really speak about his own happiness within life!

 

Jason closed his eyes. This was pointless. He had known, during all that time, that he hadn't been meant to be happy. The purpose of his existence had been a totally different thing.....

 

But it surely would have been nice to have something good now, just to think about it. Just a little distraction from the emptiness.

 

And sadness.

 

He couldn't explain it, but his „resting” was completely covered in sadness. It was a fog-from-a-tiny-fishing-village's-November-twilight-grey.

He couldn't get rid of it.

Maybe this was how it would go until the end.

 

He was so alone.

 

And cold.

 

There was no way out.

 

The wind started to howl again, just like a few nights (or some dark cycles?) before, when it took away the only thing protecting Jason. The door was shattered now, although the pieces still stayed there, in the doorway.

Jason wouldn't have got up to clean it up, even if he had had the enegry to do it.

He couldn't replace it, so he stayed with the broken pieces.

 

And so when darkness came again, he buried his face into his arms, curling up into an impossibly small ball, keeping his eyes closed tightly, lying to himself that this would be enough to shut it out. At least it was enough to save his mind.

 

Until this time, to be honest.

 

He couldn't tell why these...nights were so terrible. But they were.

 

Maybe that was the reason why he was loosing power so quickly.

He had to face the facts.

He reached the point where even the turning of his head was a difficult task.

 

He was laying in the cabin, wide eyes staring at the world, forgotten by everyone. A small, dying human being.

 

So....unimportant...

 

 

 

 

And then his daughter came to him.

 

The clear and sober part of his mind, or the very small and weakened part which was left of that, couldn't be loud enough anymore to scream at him that he didn't have a daughter.

 

The kid, standing in front of the cabin, smiled brightly at him, then, with a child's happy, carefree, energetic movements, bounced up to him. She climbed through the door's remnants, then sat down next to him.

She was nothing like one would have thought her to be.

She was somewhere around ten, quite small and fragile, in comparison to Jason. An open, lively, quite pretty face, with huge, dark eyes, probably drown (it was a mystery in itself, Jason would have never thought anyone out from the bat-family could have kids without blue-ish eyes). Dirtyblond, not too long hair, so smooth and painfully straight it wasn't a miracle she let it go freely instead of a ponytail or something. It fell around her face absolutely....perfectly. 

  
She was lovely, she was perfect.

 

She smiled with a mesmerizing brightness. Only that amazing fire in her eyes told the world how closely related she was to Jason.

 

He loved her with everything he had in his heart still.

 

„Dad....” she whispered, with an even wider smile.

„Hi, sweetheart” he whispered back, and he didn't care about the stupid endearment. He thought that this should have been the endearment he should have used all the time....

The little girl looked pleased with it, too, so he could let himself feel some of the warm, overflowing feeling, which strained his chest.

„I'm...happy for you....I'm happy I can see you” he had to say it. He had to. She had to know. He would not fuck this up.  
His kid should now how important, how beloved she was.

„And I am happy to be here with you, Dad” the smile was like the sun. Jason didn't care about going blind. He was absolutely fine with it. This face would be a perfect last sight. For anyone.

 

And right in that moment his mind did a sudden, horrible stop.

 

A last sight.....

 

Where did that come from?

 

Oh....

 

_Oh, God...._

 

He was really dying here.

 

But then what would happen to his girl?!

 

He stared up with horror to the delicate face, agonizing fear running through him. Fear for his child. Jason's mind was one breath away from it's biggest havoc, totally forgetting the little one's sudden appearance.

 

But....she was still smiling, but now a bit more...soberly. There was understanding in her eyes, a painful and real, deep one. And sadness in the smile.

 

Jason only then realized something. She was dry. She should have been drenched by the fucking rain. And she was wearing way too light clothes. And yet....she wasn't shivering, her lips not blue.

 

Her smile became even sadder, more serious....more adult.

 

A lot more like Jason this way.

 

_Oh, God....no....no....please, anything, just not that...._

 

 

 

She wasn't here.

 

And she was totally, really here.

 

 

 

He was dying.

And his kid came to him. She could. Because she was already dead.

 

Jason's tears fitted perfectly the rain's clear, cool drops outside. So...cold....washing, washing, washing away...life....

Beyond painful...

  
He stared at his child, the wonderful girl, the perfect validation of his life, just guessing the lovely happiness he could have had in his heart until the end, by knowing she was in the world.

 

He didn't know why she was here. To help? To greet him?

 

It didn't matter.

 

He wanted her to be alive! To have a long, happy, full life!

His mind was slowly breaking down by this hellish knowledge. She shouldn't have been leaving before him!!!

 

A warm, shocking touch on his forehead pulled him out of the anguish.

 

She was patting Jason's head with her small, delicate hand.

 

„Everything is fine, Dad. Please don't be so sad” she whispered, pleading with her words, with her eyes.

„How could I be....oh, God, no....” he was shaking again, after so many time being unable to do such thing. Pain came back, and it was choking him.

„Don't, please, Dad! Everything is okay. Everything is okay” she murmured, pain slowly appearing in her eyes too.

„Stop, don't suffer, not for me!” Jason's words were rushing out of his mouth so quickly it was nothing, but a breathless mumble.

She seemed to understand. Her eyes became clear again, slowly, and she tried to smile again.

„I'm not suffering. I am with you! I am happy!”

She was so...good....It hurt.

Jason couldn't understand how such a wonder's passing could be accepted by the world. The world should have stopped existing the minute she...she...

„Don't suffer!” she teased with a knowing look, her eyes understanding and...loving.

„You ask for the impossible, sweetheart!” he shook his head a little.

„As always! Only my Dad could beat it, always!” she talked back immediately.

Jason's heart warmed up at that, and he, honest to God, smiled at the girl. She was so......

 

Her eyes widened at his smile, like it was the biggest shock for today, and then she smiled like a supernova.

„I don't regret anything, Dad” she said suddenly, and Jason's blood frooze over the words. She wasn't that old, to talk like that!

The dark eyes looked at him, scanned his soul, and she nodded.

„I meant it. Everything was....good....”

„Sweeth...”

„No, don't argue! I know what I am talking about. I do!” now she was just like a kid „Even the ending was....okay....It didn't hurt. There was no pain. I know you have to know this!”

Jason could only stare. He thought his heart stopped beating right then. And it should have been that way. It would have been good.

 

But she shook her head, and her hair flew all around her shoulders. She almost glared by now.

„I wanted you to know! So you could...have peace. And have me. All of it”

 

Jason gaped at that.

"What?!” he coughed, fighting against his own shock” How could I ever...have peace or _disown_ you???”

She just smiled.

„Like you don't know a story like that!” Talking back...again...

Ow. That hurt. But it was so, so, so true.

She became serious again.

„You can love me this way. Love me, for real. No poisoning of...my memories. No pain, no horror shading.....me” she whispered almost inaudibly.

She even looked away, like she told something too harsh.

 

Jason had to fight with the whole universe to lift his hand. He did it.

And a shocked little girl stared at him, when his hand fall onto hers in her lap.

„I love you....I love you....I love you...” he whispered, again and again, not being able to stop.

 

Those dark eyes, now fulfilled with happy tears, and with so much love it almost hurt, sank into the blue-green ones, and Jason didn't want this moment to end, ever.

 

He didn't care about anything anymore.

 

His kid came to say 'hi'.....and free his soul, before his final departure.  
He wished with his whole being to exist only in this moment until the universe (multiverse) would turn into stardust.

 

She leaned over him after some time, throwing her arms around his shoulders. Her messy hair covered both of their faces, but who cared? Jason felt her face pressed to his, and it was so warm...so perfect.....  
It was the best hug of his existence. Nothing compared to it.

 

„Every story can be a good story. All of them can be whole, and perfect, in their own ways...” she whispered softly, with the sweetness of a kid.

 

He opened his mouth to ask what that meant....

 

  
  
                                                                                                                 *~*~*~*

 

 

 

 

Jason woke up with a choked gasp, throwing himself up into sitting, making his blankets fly everywhere.

 

He looked around frantically again and again, a cold, pressing pain getting stronger and stronger in his chest.

 

His safehouse was dark, silent, undisturbed and totally empty. Gotham had a quiet night.

 

He didn't even realize for long moments, fighting for normal breathing, that tears were flowing over his face.

 

And then....the memory of that brighter-than-sunshine-smile came with full force.

 

 

And Jason's whole body was shaking with his sobbing, when he sat alone on his bed, face buried into his palms, crying for a child he didn't even have.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this is the ending. 
> 
> I guess I have to (or shall) explain a few things.   
> I didn't want this ending to happen like this. At all.   
> But it started to write itself, and I let that happen. Because the original one would have been really painful, and, I think, quite stupid. 
> 
> This ending healed the story on it's own.   
> And some parts of me. 
> 
> Because this fic started from a dream I had and I found the effects really painful. (Even the part where my dead kid came to me to talk - it happened in the dream.) (Heh, no, no, I am not a parent!!! I never found out how my mind created that hell-hole for me.....)
> 
> Let me know if you want to know more about the little girl! I started to think about...something a while ago.


End file.
